Adjunct Awareness Week

Do you know who the adjuncts on this campus are? Do you know what an adjunct even is? An adjunct is a faculty member brought on to teach classes who is not recognized as a permanent professor, and chances are you have a few teaching your classes right now.More teachers than you think are adjuncts. Roughly 277 adjuncts here at PSU make up over fifty percent of employed teachers. More and more adjuncts are being employed by universities, not just at Plymouth, but nationwide.

Christopher Buckley, adjunct and adjunct speaker at PSU, acknowledged the "business-like approach," universities are taking towards hiring adjuncts. When a university hires an adjunct they are paid a fraction of what professors make, not hired full time, and receive no benefits. By doing this, "universities maximize profits on the backs of workers," as Buckley mentioned.

The economic crisis is affecting everyone, from the collective bargaining controversy in Wisconsin, to the NFL lockout, to our campus right here in Plymouth. In the context of the budget crisis, everyone's trying to cut costs, but Buckley feels that's all the more reason to take care of adjuncts. 

Dr. Krisan Evenson, adjunct faculty member of the social sciences, mentioned how people aren't aware that they get paid by credit hour instead of salary, and "are not allowed to pay in to health insurance or a retirement plan here." Evenson brought up the fact that whether or not PSU matches contributions, our tuition is increasing anyways.

Many professors here at Plymouth State hold second jobs just to pay the bills, and there is no guarantee that they will be employed in the future. Evenson, brought up how adjuncts "do not have contracts for the following semester until mere weeks before its beginning," saying "Last fall, I had one contract 7 days previous, and one contract 25 days previous." 

Job security for adjuncts is a big issue. If adjuncts in New Hampshire are counted as ‘seasonal workers' and cannot demonstrate continuing employment, they cannot even qualify for a car loan.

Last minute contracts are just one of the issues that spill over onto the students. The large amount of adjuncts here at PSU also places a larger workload on full-time faculty. Adjuncts do not advise, so the increasing amount of enrolled students are being advised by full-time professors. This means a higher ratio of students to advisor.  

Students who come to Plymouth State expect full-time professors. Composition, a class required by all departments serves as the foundation of PSU's academic curriculum, and is taught mostly by adjuncts.

On the other side of things, many adjuncts have degrees in teaching and are under-employed seeking full time tenure. That does not look promising for students graduating with a degree in teaching. 

Joan Bowers, an adjunct instructor in English, brought up the discouraging national trend saying full-time faculty have been "declining from over 45% to less than 25% of the faculty nationally during the years 1975 to 2009.  During that same period the use of underpaid part-time faculty increased by more than 280%."  

"About fifteen years ago, PSU adjunct salaries were so good relative to salaries at Keene State College, that adjuncts there eventually decided to unionize to improve their pay and working conditions," Bowers said, comparing that to present day Plymouth adjuncts, some of whom are "making only 75% of what our comparable peers make at Keene."

Plymouth State has never had unions, although the idea of unionizing has been considered Buckley says the adjuncts do not necessarily want it to go that far. Instead Buckley mentions the adjuncts just want a "parity" of the respect and treatment that is shown to adjuncts at Keene State.

The American Association of University Professors now has a representative chapter at Plymouth State but is not a collective bargaining union. PSU administration has been cooperative and understands it is a tough situation, but dialogue between the two continues.

Buckley encourages students to visit the Adjunct Awareness table outside of the HUB next week on Monday and Tuesday to show support for their adjunct faculty. Also keep an eye out for the social walk on Thursday starting at 11 AM in front of the HUB, where adjuncts will be wearing their blue shirts and having a social tour through campus at a leisurely pace to raise awareness of the situation.